I was in Berlin last week, working at a really inspiring client event. The topic was The Future of Human-Centric, Agent-Powered Work. Lots of European businesses discussing how AI might change the workplace. Or, more specifically, how AI-powered personal assistants could impact our working lives.

Understandably, the client chose to lead with ‘human-centric’, but it’s tempting to think many organisations will be more focused on ‘agent-powered’. Learning that an AI personal assistant can create meeting summaries, compile a list of actions, keep you updated on project progress, prep you for the day’s meetings and manage your calendar, given the time savings, many will be wondering if there are cost savings to be found.

No question there will be.

What might this mean for content creators? Two things: streamlined ways of working and re-emphasising the human aspect.

For writing, I’d gladly let AI help arrange an interview time, generate a quick transcript, copy check the draft to the client’s style guide, and even suggest headlines and social media tags. I’ve found AI pretty good for summarising an 800-word draft in 80 words. But I’ve yet to see any AI-produced copy that I’d be comfortable sending directly to the client.

I cannot deny that AI can shave time off many elements of the content creation process. Maybe that means I can turn more interviews into a greater variety of publishable content, more quickly. Less time spent on the first draft; more time spent finessing the final draft. It will be the same with video editors and graphic designers.

There is plenty an AI cannot do (for now). It’s not great at gathering original content. Yes, an AI bot could send a list of questions, but this is not the best way of capturing colour. Fundamentally, it cannot replace the concept of one human talking to another human. A genuine smile. An empathetic nod of the head. The spontaneous sharing of an anecdote. And I’m not sure you would ever want it to.